Joe Levi:
a cross-discipline, multi-dimensional problem solver who thinks outside the box – but within reality™

Google Phasing Out Support for MSIE6

Most web developers will tell you Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of their existence. We spend more time trying to get standards-complaint xHTML and CSS to display properly in MSIE6 than we do writing the code itself. It must be a huge embarrassment for Microsoft (if not, it should be).

There has been some chatter amongst us web developers to just start ignoring MSIE6 users (much like we already have MSIE5.5- users). Unfortunately, MSIE6 is the browser that ships with Windows XP, and there are still a LOT of XP users out there, many of whom either don’t know how to upgrade to a “real” browser, or cannot due to corporate policy (like where I work).

What we need is an 800 pound gorilla to hop in and put some weight behind the “kill off MSIE movement”.

That Gorilla is Google

I got this in my gmail box this morning:

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5.  As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.  We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience.  We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,
The Google Apps team

If that’s not the nail in the coffin, I don’t know what is.

Today is the day for you to upgrade

If you are running Internet Explorer, please take a moment to upgrade to either Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

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